I consider the recently announced reform in the national education system as another effort in a piecemeal sequence that seeks to improve the system.

However, I also perpetually register a chronic lack of boldness in addressing the system at its fundamental levels, levels which seem to have always been instructed by what other countries do. The powers that be are proud to state that "we are not inventing the wheel" when in my view it is what we should be doing in this sector. I say this because our national educational system should be developed to address our own very particular social and economic needs which are hardly found elsewhere despite globalisation. I have always been quite astonished by the professionals in the higher echelons of the local educational circles who are adamant to make it a point that their arguments are based on extensive research conducted particularly in the UK or in the Scandinavian countries, when these realities have very, but very, little in common with our own. The national economic wealth, the natural resources, the demographics, the human nature are only a few of these "world apart" differences. Education is universal but systems are not.

But I assume that I will have to resign myself to accepting that in this country creative thought is considered as a useless gadget and we excel in following and adapting. What I can certainly do, also because with God's will I am investing my time to be financially able to do so, is to a certain extent, determine the educational priorities of my own children.

My priorities for my children are that until the age of 18 they would have focused their academic efforts on only three subjects namely, Maltese, English and Mathematics. The first is a compendium of our own history, culture and values, the second is the key to studying and excelling in any other subject under the sun besides being a passport to the world, and the third is the essence in the development of logic. I will encourage my children to explore all other subjects they are interested in with a creative approach, using the vast number of IT applications but without the need to (unless they decide to do so) obtain a certificate of recognition before that age, which if know from experience carries a value that is generally as shallow as the new level of bath water used to waive off the new tariffs.

Rather than having them study a myriad of subjects, I will encourage them to employ freed up time in extra-curricular activities such as physical activity, drama and music. I will certainly not pretend that by the age of 13 or 14 they decide what their future career will be. Certainly I would prefer this to be the educational system of the country, but that is probably equivalent to seeing elephants gracefully floating on the floors of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy.